Hallie Abrams breaks down Pantone's 2026 Color of the Year, Cloud Dancer, an off-white that sparked backlash for not feeling like a color at all. She explains how Pantone's annual pick shapes fashion, beauty, and home decor, and shares why she avoided creams and whites as the mother of a groom.
Let's talk Pantone color of the year. Normally, when the Pantone color of the year comes out, it's a big, like, boom, boom, and you're excited. And is it going to be burgundy? Is it going to be rose? Is it going to be a blue? Is it. It's white. Like, they're calling it Cloud Dancer. It's sort of like this color, like an off white, which I like, but it's getting a lot of backlash because it's like, not a color. Right? It's a color, but it's not a color. You know where I'm going with this. And the Pantone picks the color, and then it sort of trickles down into all different things. It goes into fashion, it goes into nail and makeup. It goes into home decor. It goes everywhere. So I'm curious because there's a lot of cream and white and monochromatic happening anyway, in some ways it's good because we'll be able to find a lot of it and feel very like, Pantone appropriate. But in some ways, I feel like it's a little anticlimactic. I also, and this is just my own personal thing, I happen to love creams and whites and how that all looks together. As the mother of a groom this year, I really don't want to buy that much cream and white because I can't wear it. Like, back in my day, you couldn't wear white to a wedding, but you could sort of wear white to other things. And I don't think in my future daughter in law, this has nothing to do with her because she's like, wear whatever you want. I don't care. Like, she's super cool and easy. I don't think she wants her friends wearing white, which, fair enough. But I still feel like, out of respect, I'm not going to really wear white to a lot of the events I have coming up this next year. So Cloud Dancer doesn't do me any good. But maybe on, like, just a casual date night or something, I'll be wearing something like this or Cloud Dancer. But I'm curious what your thoughts are about the Pantone color. Do you wear white? Do you like wearing white? Do you like off white better? Are you okay mixing off white and white and cream all together in an outfit? And do you have anything on your radar that is Cloud Dancer that is, like, on your wish list? Let me know.
